Evaluation

Final Evaluation By Sarah Wade

In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Before I started making my contents page I looked at existing magazines’ contents to get a good idea of what sort of layout they used. I really liked this Kerrang contents page as the main image is looking to the right which draws the readers attention o the rest of the page, i.e. the writing and other pictures I also took note of the Q magazine contents as their house colours are shown in it creating a unique brand identity. It can be seen in the titles and also the page numbers. In NME they have also created their brand identity through house colours. I liked the way the titles of each section of the magazine were presented and also the ‘Band index’.

After looking at contents pages from existing music magazine I did a flat plan of my contents page on Microsoft publisher to see how it would look. I played around with different layout styles until I got one I was happy with which is shown in the picture on the right. This helped me as when making my contents page I knew exactly where I wanted each feature.

Masthead Main image Titles Editors note Quote Box outs and captions Brand identity and house colours Page numbers Folio

After playing around with lots of the ideas from the magazines I looked at I came up with my final contents page. I decided to use two types of typography on my contents page along with the brand identity. The masthead uses a sans-serif font along with the sans-serif font used in my brand identity ‘underground’. I used another simple sans-serif font for the titles on the page. For the quote used I a serif font to give more variety in the magazine and break up the page. I used my magazines name ‘underground’ on the page, creating a brand identity and also making the reader know the magazine they were reading whilst looking at the contents

My contents page represents the music genre I am aiming at which is mainly ‘Rock/Indie’. I used a pull quote from Greendays lead singer Billy Joe Armstrong. I thought this was relevant as Greendays music genre is rock. Also the quote related to rock music so I decided that this showed the suggestion of the music genre clearly. It also uses images which would appeal to people who like this type of genre. For example a old school/retro camera is used as a prop in the main image, I used this as I thought it would appeal to people who liked the rock/Indie genre. It does so by giving a variety of titles of existing music from these genres, for example ‘Pete Doherty’ and ‘Mark Ronson’. For some of the articles in my magazine I used a picture of what the article was about and added a box out caption and page number on each. This includes my main features page, my leading article shown on the front cover, underground awards shown on the front cover and others.

I have used the text and images efficiently on my contents page to ensure a attractive amount of white space is on the page, I particularly liked the leading on the font I used for the contents as it gives contrast with the other fonts used on the page. I decided to have my contents page quite orderly and neat as I felt that my magazines target audience was not the ‘messy’ type so I avoided using visual clutter . I decided to use my house colours of black and red on the contents page to show my brand identity. For the editors note I decided to edit an image so it was in the red and black house colours. Therefore showing a picture of the editor behind the text. I like the effect this has as it makes it mysterious as you can’t clearly see the subjects face, I think this adds a interesting feel and fits in well with the magazine, it makes it friendly as it is an editors note but not too revealing as it doesn’t show the face of the editor like it might in other magazines. It also reflects the house colours.

I really liked the convention used in the picture in Kerrang magazines contents. This convention uses indirect address, as draws the readers eye towards the features on the contents page and also had a nice effect on the page as a whole. I took a picture of a similar effect but using a camera to point the reader in the direction of the text. I also made the picture into a page in the magazine by putting a small caption and page number, much like the one in Kerrang.

Before making my front page I did a simple flat plan of what I wanted the layout to look like and what conventions I would use on it. I created it using Microsoft publisher. After moving ideas around I finally reached a layout I was happy with. I feel this was very important as it made making my actual front cover much easier as I had a clear idea of where to put everything. I labelled each part clearly also for example I was sure I’d have the ‘exclusive’ buzzword in the skyline so I labelled that to go there.

This is my final front cover. For my main image i wanted to create direct address. I did this by making the subject look directly into the camera lenses so it looks like they are looking right at the reader. I decided to make the strapline quite wide, although this is an unusual convention as most straplines are smaller than the masthead I decided it would make my magazine stand out more and look more unique, creating part of my brand identity. I also erased part of the skyline where the masthead is to add my effect and reflect the ‘rock’ side of the genre of my magazine. I decided to make the masthead a banner to make it stand out to the reader and make it very visible. I have used my house colours on my front cover too as part of my brand identity. I kept the ‘O’s on my main article headline red as this is a part of my brand identity. I also kept that in red and black as it is the most important article on the cover so I decided to show this by putting it in my house colours. I used a quote under one of the coverlines which is called a mini head, this gives the reader a insight as to what the article is about, it also acts as a lure.

I made sure I used buzzwords on my front cover to engage the reader, for the word plus I used a paintbrush on photoshop to add effect behind it making it stand out more. I also positioned it at more of an angle to make it have an effect of visual clutter. I added two images on my front cover as a lure of what is inside my magazine. I decided to add an around both images as this is what I did on my features page so I felt it would reflect some of my brand identity. I also added a caption acting as a coverline telling you what is it and where it is In the magazine. Also this suggests the music genre that my magazine is as it is a festival similar to reading, which is the type of festival I would expect my target audience to like. I added a gig list with artists and bands that my target audience would typically. These are on the cover as cover lines. I put a banner advertorial along the bottom of my front cover, this is also a cover line because it is included inside the magazine (as shown in the contents) but also an advert because it is advertising the official awards from my magazine.

Before creating my features page I did a flat plan of it on Microsoft publisher, this was important as I could see what I wanted the layout to be like and what conventions I wanted to include in it. I decided to have a large headline, a few images and a body copy.

This is my final outcome for my features page. Dropcap Headline Pull quote Body copy Folio Writer Caption/Boxout Photographer

I used a pull quote from the body copy, I felt this quote was relevant to my magazine and was an important part in the article. I used a drop cap in my house colour of red and the same distinctive font that I used for my brand identity – underground, this is used to give the text a starting point and draw the readers eye to the article.. For the images I used captions which tells the reader a little bit about each picture. I decided to make the box out in my house colour of red and have a jagged edge to which fits in with the features of my features page, i.e the pictures are in the woods. For the questions that the writer of the article was asking the artist I used a box out background to make them stand out from the answers. I put a folio at the bottom of my page which created a unique brand identity also showing the reader what magazine they were reading. On this picture I put some text which is acting as an advertisement for the artist Bella's new single, it is advertising it on iTunes, this addresses my audience as it is what a majority of them would use to download music.

Looking at other magazines such as Kerrang I found that they often give the articles a ‘K’ rating. I decided to do a similar thing on my features page, instead of ‘K’ I used the letter ‘O’ I made this part of my brand identity and unique style by using the font used in my house font used for my mast head and main title ‘Underground’. The maximum number of O’s a article can get is 5 and the more O’s that it gets the better it is. I gave this article a 5 O rating meaning it is very good and a must read! Around the edge of the images used in my features page I used an eraser with a special effect on it to erase the edges of the picture. This created a interesting border and effect on the picture making it seem less harsh on the page and fitting in with the style of my magazine and features page. It reflects the pictures also as they are taken in the woods. I used my house colours on the whole of my features page. I made sure the Headline of my article was in my main house colours of red and black, but I also used an effect on the background making it a lighter shade of red therefore representing my house colours. I also used the red. I decided to use a variety of images on my contents page to make it more appealing and attractive to the reader. I also used a variety of different camera angles in these images. I felt this would capture the artist in more than one way and give a more exciting effect on the page as a whole.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

To compare my magazine with another I chose this particular copy of NME magazine. This is because it is a similar type of camera shot as both of them use direct address. Also they are both close up shoots as they show a shot from just below the shoulders upwards. The image of Pete Doherty on NME also is relevant to my magazine as it is the indie/ acoustic side of the music genre of my magazine. Pete Doherty is also included on my front cover as part of the magazine content. The lighting in the images are also similar as it is darker down the left side of both images. The expression is similar also as it is quite serious and blank.

The content on my contents page represents the age group I am aiming my magazine at, 16-20. Most festivals don’t let you go unless you are 16 or above to therefore ‘jump festival’. On my features page I used language that would appeal to my target audience, for example the word ‘awesome’. One of the main images I used on my features page is designed to give a carefree relaxed representation. This reflects my target audience as I am aiming at the laid back, happy, fun social group. Also the text on this image is acting as an advertorial which fits the social group I have aimed at, it shows that they are open to new music and would be willing to pay for a new piece of it. This reflects a more sophisticated middle class reader who is legally download music. The price on my magazine also represents the social group of my target audience. At £2.45 it is an affordable price but not particularly cheap. It is 15p more than my most comparable existing magazine NME at £2.30. I think this reflects the social group I was aiming at, this reflects the results in my reader profile as most of my readers were employed either part of full time meaning they would be able to afford my magazine. The costume I chose for ‘Bella’ in my features page represents the type of social group I am aiming at. This is done by ‘Bella’ wearing ‘Indie’/’Retro’ clothes therefore representing the stereotypical ‘Indie kid’ which is the type of group that I would expect as my ideal readers.

The typography used for my magazine name as well as my brand identity represents the age group of my target audience. Also it represents my social group well as it still looks classy as well as showing the ‘Indie/rock’ genre I am going for meaning it still fits in with the rest of my magazine. I tried to keep my main house colours as black and red as this was the colours used in magazines name ‘underground’. Therefore I made sure that I kept these house colours throughout my features page, contents page, front cover and reader profile. However I also added in different blue tones later on as an extra, I think this reflects and represents the relaxed ‘coolness’ of the social group I aimed for. Where as the red and black represents the music genre ‘Rock. The position and expression of ‘Holly Francho’ on my front cover represent the relaxed, carefree social group. This is done through the blank expression and the indirect address is used to show this, it is designed to make the reader feel laid back also.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think that the company ‘IPC’ would distribute my media product. As magazine publishers IPC Media produces over 60 iconic media brands including music magazines NME; http://www.ipcadvertising.com/resource/hvcjivb3x8p8oqk9bw285ffu.pdf and Uncut; http://www.ipcadvertising.com/resource/ie8ggqzju8kgqdditq67k9hj.pdf . (Click the links to see the reader profiles for each magazine). The fact that IPC publishes NME magazine is very important as my magazine is most relevant to that than any other in the media. This means that they would be likely to want to publish ‘Underground‘ as it is a similar music genre to NME magazine and also Uncut magazine as that too has a genre of rock/indie/acoustic. I decided that I would definitely use IPC for my publishers. IPC is the biggest media publisher in the UK, it reaches almost two thirds of UK women and 42% of UK men. This is relevant to my magazine as I am aiming for both genders. After researching into other publishing companies I found Rhinegold. This company published media products much different to mine, they were more a specific classical genre of music meaning that it would not be suitable for publishing something like ‘Underground’.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

My ‘ideal reader’. This is an example of one of my ideal readers for Underground. The pictures around the page represent what their interests. These include going to parties, shopping in Topshop and Camden, going to festivals and playing guitar. Also you can see where they like to go to for a social occasion – Starbucks. Their favourite band is The Libertines, and their favourite TV show is Misfits. All this shows how my reader will fit in with my magazine as it features bands such as and similar to The Libertines. Also my magazine features festivals such as reading and ones similar meaning that she will be interested in the content. My reader is up to date with fashion styles whilst keeping a bit of her own style with it, fitting in with the stereotypical ‘Indie’ genre of my magazine. She will be able to afford the price of £2.45 as she has a part time job as well as studying at college. She fits in with the age range I was aiming for at 17 years. She also gives a relaxed and laid back impression meaning that she fits in nicely to the style of Underground magazine. Party Camden market Guitar playing Fav band Social TV Topshop/Topman Reading Festival

How did you attract/address your audience?

Before creating my magazine pages I did some market research into my audience, to see what sort of things they liked and what they would want to see inside a magazine. To conduct the research I did a questionnaire on the computer and printed off several copies. I then handed these to people to complete and hand back to me. I also conducted a survey on ‘Survey monkey’ and advertised it on ‘Facebook’ meaning I got a lot more people doing it than when I did a hard copy. This is also relevant as most of my Facebook friends are in the main age range I was aiming for are. Doing both different research methods helped me a get a wider range of results from different people. The questions I asked were ones that I felt were most relevant to creating a music magazine that would fit closely to my audience, some of the questions included favourite genre, favourite shops and even how often they listened to music. I felt that the more I knew about my target audience the easier it would be to address and attract them. After the results were collected from this research I made a readers profile, this is designed to reflect my target audience and their interests. Also my reader profile showed me what sort of factors I needed to appeal to in my actual magazine pages. For example my features page tells me that 49% of my readers are male and 51% of them are female meaning I needed to create a suitable mode of address for both genders.

My results of my surveys showed me that the genre most people liked was rock/indie/acoustic. Therefore I used a number of forms and conventions In my magazine to make it appeal to my audience by taking into consideration the genre. For example I made sure I used features on my magazine that would appeal to my target audience I.E Indie bands and festivals. The price was also an important part in attracting my audience as I wanted to make it affordable for the age range I aimed at, after looking at prices of other magazines such as NME, Kerrang and MOJO I felt that my price of £2.45 was most suitable for my audience. I feel the unique selling point of my magazine is its name and the style of the magazine as a whole. The name is a unique selling point as my first idea was of the London Underground. To me London Underground has connotations of trendy, indie people or people playing music at the bottom of escalators. This was the sort of people I wanted to aim my magazine at so I thought the name was very relevant and would make people think twice after hearing or seeing the name. I then based my house colours around the London Underground logo and also my brand identity around it. I decided to make my ‘underground’ masthead my brand identity by keeping the same font whenever talking about ‘underground’ in my magazine. I decided to make the D’s and O’s in ‘Underground’ a distinctive red colour as to reflect the London underground logo. Also I decided to keep this theme for main articles too, keeping them in my house colours of red and black. I feel this created a unique brand identity and was one of my unique selling points as it is a different idea from other magazines on the current market.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQf5TB0jZm4 Click this link to hear me talking about the technology I used! (If what I am saying is on the next slide if the video does not work for any reason)

For this product I have used a variety of technology whilst planning and constructing my product. I used two different cameras for my pictures, one of these was a more basic digital type of camera, it had a good lenses and flash. The other was a SLR camera that I used for my features page. These both gave me very high quality photographs. I then edited the contrasts and lighting of my pictures in Adobe Photoshop CS3. For the lighting in my pictures I used the flash on the cameras, natural light and also the spotlights in my kitchen which I turned off in different areas for effect. I used Photoshop CS3 for the making of my features page, contents page and front cover. I found this programme the best to use for me and preferred it to serif photo plus, I felt it allowed me to use a variety of different tools and effects to create a professional and high quality piece of work. I already had some basic skills with Photoshop but the tasks allows me to develop them further so by the time I came around to making my front cover I knew it back to front.. When creating my flat plan I used Microsoft Publisher. This was because I found it very simple and easy to use and felt it was all I needed to create a basic flat plan. I used a variety of different websites in my making and presenting of my magazine also. For example ‘slideshare’, this is a great website to upload files from Microsoft power point on to. It was easy to use and converted my PowerPoint into a code that I could then post on my blog. For my blog I used Blogger – a easy to use and efficient blog where I was able to post all my relevant information and tasks for this project. When conducting my survey I used ‘Survey Monkey’ which was free to sign up to and easy to use, allowing me to make my own questionnaire online with multiple choice answers if I needed them. I could also link people to this questionnaire on social networking sites such as Facebook which was beneficial. I also used a scanner to scan in the work I had done on paper, this was effective on my blog and gave variety to look at. To make a presentation of the photos I took for my front cover I used ‘Slide Rocket' this was easy to use and similar to PowerPoint, it is uploaded by using code which I embedded into my blog. Overall I feel all technological uses were very beneficial to me and I think I used them well to my ability and beyond. I feel I used a variety of conventions to make my blog look interesting. This is what I am saying in my video (if it does not work for any reason I have put it here)

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progress from it to the full product?

Looking back at my preliminary task I feel I have learnt a lot in the progression from this to my final full product. My final product appears much more professional than my preliminary task. I have learnt to use the forms and conventions of a front cover much more effectively since making my preliminary school magazine task. I am pleased with my main image on my preliminary task but apart from that I feel that things do not work well. On my front cover however I feel that everything works well together and I am very pleased with it as a final result. It is much more balanced than my preliminary task and uses a range of soft and bold colours which are attracting to the eye, where as in my preliminary task I feel the colours I used are too bright and are not attractive to look at. My preliminary task is more basic compared to my final product. It is lacking in features including the preview of what is inside the magazine. I feel my background on the final task works a lot better than my preliminary task, it has a range of lighting and fits in with the picture, my preliminary task uses a more simple background which is not as attractive. Also I feel my masthead with the magazine name is a lot more professional on my final piece. The title ‘Munch’ looks amateur and I have no used Photoshop to my ability on this, however after learning more about Photoshop I was able to create a more professional exciting masthead on my final piece, I also used a more exciting font to attract and address my audience. I also used a barcode on my final piece which makes it look a lot more professional and also shows more about my target audience because of the price. Overall I feel I achieved a lot from doing my preliminary task as I was able to learn from my mistakes and improve greatly on my final product resulting in a professional look.

Comparing my preliminary contents page with my final contents page I can see a lot of difference and I feel that it shows my progress from the preliminary task to my final product. My contents page in my preliminary task is very basic and looking back I have not put many conventions and forms of magazines into it. Looking at my contents page for my music magazine I feel I have used a wider range of forms and conventions including indirect address, captions and box outs, editors note, headlines and sub headlines, a pull quote, a variety of images and a folio. I also organised my contents page in a more orderly fashion making it look more attractive on the page. I have used more than two types of typography to make it look more exciting on the eye and lure the reader. On my preliminary task I used two fonts which were simple and basic meaning it is no where near as eye catching as my final product. I feel I organised the page numbers much more efficiently on my final product. As you can see on my preliminary task I wrote ‘page’ before each number, this is not very typical of a magazine to do so, therefore I took this into careful consideration when constructing my final contents page. Overall I feel I achieved a lot from doing my preliminary task as I was able to learn from my mistakes and improve greatly on my final product resulting in a professional look.

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